


we know well our own mirrors

by Rethira



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mark on his forehead is there of his own choosing.</p>
<p>This, Pelleas feels, makes all the difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we know well our own mirrors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taywen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taywen/gifts).



> for taywen/crowbito for Nagamas!
> 
> I hope you like it!

Naesala’s forearm is a mess of pale white scars.

He makes no effort to hide it, smiles when Pelleas sees it even. Pelleas thinks that perhaps the others who’ve seen it make assumptions. And well, yes, he’s making an assumption as well, but.

He remembers the stark black-red lines of the pact on his skin, and he wonders if, given time, he wouldn’t have come to despise it as much as Naesala had.

 

He’d approached Naesala after they’d descended. Words hadn’t seemed quite enough, but they were all Pelleas had to offer.

“I don’t want your pity,” Naesala had snapped. He’d been staring at the heron laguz. Princess Leanne had looked up as Naesala said it, and Pelleas had been glad she wasn’t looking at _him_ like that.

 

The mark on his forehead is there of his own choosing.

This, Pelleas feels, makes all the difference.

 

There are stronger laguz than the ravens, but Daein isn’t an accepting nation at the best of times, and seeing raven laguz is perhaps somewhat more of a common sight than any others. Naesala is quick to assert that Kilvas’ relationship under the old king has long been rendered moot, and besides which, he no longer represents Kilvas.

Micaiah smiles at him, a harsh smile, and negotiates an exchange with Serenes.

 

The sage frowns when Pelleas asks. Pelleas gets the feeling he frowns a lot these days; there’s something very melancholic about Lord Lehran.

“It will require opening the scars again,” Lehran says. “The process is a painful one, and not done lightly. Are you sure you wish to do it?”

“Yes,” Pelleas says, “I am.”

 

Naesala stays on afterwards, and there’s a perfectly unfathomable expression on his face when Pelleas asks why.

Later, Naesala slides his sleeve up, baring a criss-cross of scars. Some few mark a familiar pattern on his skin.

“A reminder,” Naesala comments.

Pelleas feels sick when he thinks on it.

 

“They called us the same,” Naesala says.

“We’re not,” Pelleas replies.

Naesala looks away. “No. We’re not.”

 

Serenes cannot possibly be in any less disrepair than Daein is, and yet Naesala does not leave.

“I prefer it here,” is all he says on the matter.

 

Pelleas cannot call himself a _friend_ to Naesala – he doubts many can – but he is one of the very few who seek Naesala’s presence. Micaiah tolerates him, he thinks, and Sothe looks on him with blatant mistrust. Only Volug seeks Naesala out with any sort of regularity.

It’s enjoyable to find Naesala, perched awkwardly on a chair, stroking Volug as if he were an unusually large dog.

“Don’t laugh,” Naesala had said the first time, but Pelleas hadn’t even been tempted to.

 

Prince Reyson visits Daein. He and Naesala argue, loudly. Pelleas never asks what exactly happens, but something terrible must, for when Reyson leaves his face is nothing less than ashen and Naesala’s scars are bare to the world.

“There was an incident,” Naesala comments, with a wry half-smile. “Don’t worry yourself about it.”

Naesala gives Pelleas too little credit.

 

Sometimes, late at night, Pelleas can hear whispering. It’s just on the edge of hearing, and he can’t make out the words.

He knows it’s real because other spirit charmers speak of it.

They say that the voices get louder and clearer the closer you come to death.

Pelleas never tells Micaiah, but on the day she didn’t kill him, the voices had been shouting.

 

A message reaches the capital; a village in the northwest has been out of contact for a month, and the blizzards have been unusually strong this year.

Naesala’s gone for a week afterwards, and he comes back with ice on his feathers and a chill in his blood.

“Gone,” he croaks when Micaiah asks. “Buried.”

 

Summer comes slowly to Daein, but the same cannot be said for Serenes.

The heat is almost oppressive; he can see why the laguz forgo shirts where they can. Even Naesala does, although he’s careful to cover his ruined arm.

Pelleas asks Leanne early on, and she says, “He doesn’t wish Reyson to know.”

 

It’s nice to have someone who understands. Sometimes Naesala catches Pelleas clutching anxiously at his arm, fingers wrapped tight around a mark that’s no longer there.

He doesn’t say anything, simply lifts his chin in acknowledgement.

Pelleas finds himself relaxing, just a little.

 

The day after Naesala’s fever breaks, Micaiah herself drags Pelleas away from his side. “You’ll work yourself to death,” she says, like she knows Pelleas would be happy to.

The next time Pelleas sees Naesala, he’s up on his feet, grumbling about overbearing healers and cold fingers prodding him in places he _certainly_ didn’t need to be prodded. His face breaks into a sly smile when he sees Pelleas.

What he says is unimportant; he ends up bracketing Pelleas against the wall and kissing him almost carefully, and Pelleas cannot say he objects to this at all.

 

Sometimes Micaiah asks about it. She knows as much about the pact as anyone does, and yet.... Pelleas doesn’t think she can ever truly understand. He doubts anyone who hasn’t had the experience can.

And this leads, of course, to talking to Naesala.

“Sometimes,” Naesala says, “sometimes I should have liked to see Kilvas burn.”

 

Naesala presses kisses to the unmarked skin on Pelleas’ forearm. It makes Pelleas shudder; in response, he strokes the marred skin of Naesala’s forearm and mouths over the scars.

 

“I hated it, of course,” Naesala says. “When Serenes burned, I tried to cut the mark from my skin. The scars came in white, but where they crossed the mark, they ran red and black.” He smiles.

Pelleas stays silent.

“It’s good that beorc live short lives,” Naesala continues. “It’s so much easier to forget.”

 

Naesala had not signed the blood pact himself. Pelleas knows this without having to ask. Naesala inherited his mark with the death of the old king – “My grandfather,” Naesala comments, “And wasn’t my uncle furious when I was named king instead of him.” – and was visited by the then-senators only a few weeks later. They hadn’t been civil, Naesala claimed, and he’d been quite furious himself.

Sometimes Pelleas thinks that Naesala believes Pelleas to be very stupid, to have signed the pact himself.

 

Serenes does not host a palace or a castle. The largest building is on the very outskirts, and it serves as dining hall, meeting room and ballroom, as well as everything else they could ever need. Homes are scattered throughout the forest, their size varying depending on the builders and the needs of the people living there.

It makes for a very different place than Daein, not least because of how green it is.

 

Naesala only agrees to it after the Incident, as he calls it. “I still think it’s ridiculous,” he says. “Why did you even suggest it?”

Pelleas looks down; his arms are covered, but he knows that underneath, his skin is clear and white. Pristine.

“You don’t need such a reminder,” he says.

 

In his fever dreams, Naesala is a child.

“Please don’t go, father,” he calls.

Pelleas mops his brow, and pretends he doesn’t hear.

 

Naesala calls Daein a distant beauty. Then he smiles and says, “And you’re a close one,” and Pelleas has to hide his face in his hands.

 

After they clear a path towards the- well, Pelleas can’t call it a shrine. An altar, perhaps. In any case, Prince Reyson, Prince Rafiel and Princess Leanne all ascend it, matching smiles on each of their faces.

They sing a galdr, the beauty of which all but brings Pelleas to his knees. He trembles to hear it, finds tears streaming from his eyes, and he’s far from the only one.

Beside him, Naesala shakes.

 

The knife traces each of Naesala’s scars. He had asked for Pelleas to open them all, rather than one at a time; his forearm is a mess of blood. It’s. It is. Bile rises in Pelleas’ throat, and he forces it back.

“Almost,” Pelleas says, “almost.”

 

There is something to be said for the speed of a crow. Even the bad-tempered citizens agree to that; Naesala can ascend and make accurate observations about the flood plain far faster than even the speediest of their wyvern knights.

It’s important this close to the melt. The past few years, the melt water has devastated hundreds, if not thousands, while Begnion stood by and did- well. By all accounts they did little to help. Rebuilding has been... slow.

When Naesala comes back down, he shakes his head. “You’ve built too close to the river. Even flood barriers won’t save these buildings.”

The villagers groan and mutter, but they know Naesala speaks the truth, and for that, Pelleas is thankful.

 

There’s a wedding in Crimea.

At the ball afterwards, Naesala drags Pelleas into a dark corner and presses kisses to his throat.

 

If he listens carefully, he can still make out the whispers. But they don’t seem so very important when he’s tucked against Naesala’s warm chest.

Besides, they’re quiet now. So quiet he can barely hear them at all.

 

“Are you glad?” Pelleas asks, because it seems the thing to do.

Naesala stares at his forearm. “I don’t know,” he replies.

He rolls his sleeves up around Reyson the next day, the first time since the Incident, and Reyson’s eyes go momentarily wide.

He thanks Pelleas later, and Pelleas struggles not to say, “I didn’t do it for _you_.”

 

It’s after his fever has run its course; Pelleas is so exhausted that he’s fallen asleep beside Naesala. He wakes up to a gentle hand running through his hair, and when he looks up it’s Naesala.

“Come here,” Naesala says, tiredly, and he tugs Pelleas into bed beside him.

“I should really get the healer,” Pelleas mumbles, but he’s asleep again before his head even hits the pillow.

 

“Yes,” Naesala says, later. “Yes, I am.”

Pelleas smiles.


End file.
